Monday, June 11, 2012

Hawaiian Neighborhoods

June 11, Monday: The next morning we awoke to a blue sky for the first time.

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We met the owner of the vacation rental where we are staying. The owners are from Texas, but they spend the summers in Hawaii. We were living in their summer home and they were staying in their timeshare. He had come by to fix a living-room, window blind. We told him not to bother if he was fixing it just for us, since we never intend to lower the blinds.

We didn’t tell him that we’d lived at our Texas house on Mahalo for over three years without blinds and curtains except in the bathrooms. We had purchased drapes, but didn’t install them. We finally put up curtains in our bedroom the morning of Eric and Chrystina’s wedding, so the bride could dress without an audience. I miss that house, the privacy, the quiet, and Eric and Chrystina.

Eric and Chrystina's wedding in our backyard on Mahalo, in Bastrop, Texas 2011

The house where we are now is in the middle of a typical neighborhood on the west side of the Big Island of Hawaii. We can watch hula lessons in front of a house down the street. No one needs or uses air-conditioning. Our neighbors’ parties, conversations, fights, music, televisions, laughing and crying children, and dogs are all clearly heard along with the birds and waves. Our dogs have not become accustomed to the sight and sound of dogs running loose, kids on bikes, walkers, and joggers. Hopefully our dogs will stop telling us about the neighborhood activity soon. We’re trying to teach them not to bark when the other dogs are barking, which is all too often. There are two dogs and a cat living below us. They are friendly and not the barkers, but Frisky freaks out every time he sees them, especially when they are standing right outside the glass door, so we can’t leave the dogs aloneat the house yet.